Times Like These

by Laura Carter

  She thought only about the voice in the room and the sweet melody of the piano. How could such a beautiful voice come from such an incredibly ill-mannered, poorly dressed man?

  17

  Andrea

  Andrea pulled a brush through her dark hair and leaned across the wash basin toward the wall mirror to put on a moisturising lip gloss. She didn’t need to look fancy for her long drive and she certainly didn’t need to look good for what she had planned today. Gloss and a little eye make-up would stop anyone screaming Witch! if she wound up in a drive-through and, otherwise, she was good to go.

  The combination of the heartburn she had been suffering for weeks now – which she really needed to get checked out, when she had a spare moment – and the anticipation of what she was about to do, had her feeling nauseous.

  She crouched by the toilet and pressed a hand to her chest, swallowing until the sickness subsided.

  She was playing God today, meddling in people’s lives and, though she knew her motives were justified, if her plan backfired, Andrea could lose her sister forever. There was no way of knowing for sure which way the cookie would crumble.

  Pushing up to stand too quickly, spots of purple and yellow flashed in her vision. She closed her eyes briefly, until the spots subsided, then made her way from Tommy’s en suite, through his bedroom, where they had spent another blissful night of rolling around in his sheets, and into the living area.

  Seeing Tommy’s naked back as he made coffee in the kitchen, wearing only lounge pants, made her pause to enjoy the view.

  Without turning, still focusing on making himself coffee, Tommy said, ‘Didn’t you get a good enough look last night?’

  She smiled, thinking she would never get enough. Somehow, over the last few weeks, she had started to crave Tommy – his counsel on matters of the music world, his support of her work, the way he held her in his strong arms, the way he didn’t judge her, the way her opinion on his new songs mattered to him and the way he made her laugh, like no one had made her laugh for years.

  It scared her and she was having to fight her instincts to run but somehow, the instinct to stay was winning out for the first time in her life. Her plan, currently, was to try not to think about what would happen if things went pear-shaped.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, approaching him and slipping her arms around his waist, pressing her lips to his shoulder blades. ‘Domestication looks good on you.’

  He turned, tugging her tighter against him as he leaned back on the kitchen counter. He stroked her hair with a touch so tender she closed her eyes and leaned into his hand.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

  ‘The same. Like this could be a terrible idea and it could backfire massively… but like it’s the right thing to do. I just want to get this over with and come back here to see you.’

  His lips curved slightly at one side, then he kissed her brow. ‘How about I take you out tonight?’

  ‘Like out in public?’

  ‘Like out to dinner in a place where the policy is discretion and no Press.’

  Rumours about Andrea’s personal life had been rife ever since she got the position of CEO at Stellar. Was it worse to have people say that she slept her way to the top by screwing the exec or that she was keeping the post by banging one of XM Music Group’s biggest stars?

  As she asked herself this question, she also knew that there was a part of her – though small – that knew the outcome of today could swing some of those rumours around. Getting ahead at work was not her motivation today but she could admit that, the right outcome could be the move she needed to make on the chess board of the Stellar label exec.

  Was today just about freeing her sister? Or was it also self-serving?

  ‘Hey, did you hear me?’ Tommy asked, still holding her.

  She nodded. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Just, okay?’

  She kissed his brow. ‘Okay.’ Then she took the takeout tea she assumed he had poured for her, knowing she was still enduring a fallout with her beloved coffee, from the counter and made to leave.

  ‘Would you look at that woman’s ass?’ Tommy called out.

  She put extra swagger into her hips as she and her form-fitting cream pants left the apartment.

  As she drove the I-495 out of the city, Andrea’s head spun with a thousand questions. How had she and Tommy seemed to slip into something extremely close to resembling the early stages of a relationship? Where were things going between them and where would they end up? Was she ready for this? Was she over the whole mess with Hunter? What if they did decide to be together? What happened when he inevitably got bored of domesticity and went on tour? The groupies. The wild nights. Andrea stuck in Williamsburg wondering what in the hell he was getting up to.

  She drained the last of her tea and physically shook the thoughts from her mind, then pushed the button on the dash to turn on the radio.

  ‘Here it is, this week’s most requested track, “Moving On” by hot new country artist, Seth Young.’

  Andrea turned up the radio, rolled down the windows of Tommy’s Range Rover, and hummed along to Seth’s hit.

  Damn he was good. So good, she expected he would become the most successful act to come out of Sanfia Records since Tommy and his band had been picked up by XM Music Group with a contract that kept Sanfia afloat for years after. Now was a good time for Sanfia Records – or the good times were on the horizon, at least.

  And that thought brought her full circle to the reason she was driving out to the Hamptons to pay an unexpected visit to her brother-in-law (and only in-law as far as she was concerned), in rehab.

  As the roadside turned from concrete jungle to long stretches of sand dunes and beach shores, Andrea inhaled the fresh air deeply. Then was struck with the overwhelming need to throw up.

  Checking her mirrors, she swung off to the side of the road, slammed on her brakes and barely managed to open the door before she vomited on the ground.

  Wiping her mouth, she leaned back in the driver’s seat and closed her eyes. Heartburn. Sore breasts. Off coffee. Now, nausea.

  Holy fuck. Was she pregnant?

  No, surely.

  Maybe.

  It was possible.

  She and Hunter never used anything but they had a combined age of nearly a hundred, surely not.

  She and Tommy had gotten carried away on more than one occasion but how likely was once or twice?

  ‘Let’s be rational here, Andi. You don’t know anything. Get on with your day and take a test later. You’ll see,’ she told herself.

  She pulled back onto the road and continued her drive to Jay’s rehab facility. She thought about what her father had said to her when they last discussed Sofia.

  ‘I’ve told her I’ll come back to the studio full time. She’s tied to Jay morally and in business. It’s a nasty combination. The hardest thing as a father is to accept that your baby girls need to do things on their own sometimes, work things out for themselves. She knows that when she’s ready, I’m here. There’s not much more I can do without pushing her away. You should know that as well as anyone.’

  Sofia had always been Andrea’s responsibility and whether Sofia ever understood how much Andrea loved her or not, Andrea would always look out for the best interests of her sister.

  That was the important thing today. That was her sole focus.

  * * *

  It was half an hour later, after she had gotten through the security check-in – a thousand interrogating questions about who she was and why she was visiting the client – that Andrea stood on the edge of the lawn to Jay’s clinic. With the whitewash building – that looked more like a cosy retreat than a substance abuse rehabilitation centre – behind her, she looked out to sea. A light breeze whipped up her hair and chilled her skin where she had gotten hot in the car from the sun beaming through the windows, despite the air conditioning.

  She was pleased she had decided to wear flat shoes as the lawn mixed wit
h sand and made for a soft surface. Beyond the lawn, the grass gave way to dunes that tumbled down the short bank to the water, which gently lolled back and forth, making short white waves.

  She had known friends with homes in the Hamptons over her years working in the music industry. She’d had a fling or two that wound up in dirty weekends locked in the summer homes of artists and executives, who rarely had time to enjoy them.

  One such executive she had been sleeping with for more than half of the past year. As she had that thought, she realised her hand had come to rest on her lower abdomen, as if confirming what she wasn’t ready to have confirmed.

  ‘I’m not sure you’re the very last person I expected to see but you’re certainly down there on the list.’

  Remembering that she was here on… business, of sorts, Andrea turned to face Jay. She analysed him like a doctor looking for disease. Clean sneakers. Jogging bottoms. A pressed Coldplay merchandise T-shirt. The way his hair had grown shaggy and too long but looked, at least, clean. She clocked his bare fingers and noted that the gold band that usually decorated the fourth finger of his left hand was not in place. Then she assessed his eyes, finding them to be white – as clear as she had ever seen them.

  ‘Have you come to gloat?’ he asked, sourly.

  ‘No,’ she replied, honestly.

  He walked toward one of numerous white, Parisien-esque tables on the lawn. Andrea followed and a member of staff automatically brought them each a glass, filling them with cucumber-infused water as they sat silently.

  How did she start this?

  ‘You look better,’ she said. ‘Good.’

  His bemused look showed from behind his glass as he drank.

  ‘I know we don’t see eye-to-eye, Jay.’

  He scoffed and said, ‘Understatement,’ just loud enough for her to hear his petulant tone.

  ‘Like I said. But I am glad that you’re finally getting the help you need.’

  He scratched his head, his knuckles white with strain as he clearly battled his annoyance or frustration, perhaps both.

  ‘There’s clearly nothing wrong with Sofia, otherwise you would have opened with that or maybe not even come at all. Fuck knows. Whatever you need to say couldn’t wait another fifteen days until I get out of here. So, how about you say what you came to say and be on your way, Andrea?’

  She nodded. There weren’t many things she could respect about Jay. There were many things she could hate, like the way he manipulated his way into Sanfia Records, which, she suspected, had been a major factor behind him seeking out Sofia in the first place. Like the way he tried to change Sanfia Records, wanting to introduce dance music and drum and bass, basically using an established label for his own preferences, rather than having the balls to set something up for himself. Or the way he spoke down to Sofia and demeaned her without her even realising it. The way he had changed and continued to change her bright, quirky and happy younger sister into someone plain and unhappy. But, if there was anything about Jay she could respect, he, like her, also liked to cut to the chase.

  She slowly sipped her water, knowing that she could be the bigger person but unable to let Jay have control of the situation.

  ‘You’re not wearing your wedding ring,’ she said, looking out to the ocean.

  She saw from the corner of her eye as he wrapped his right hand over his left. ‘That make you happy? You’d love it, wouldn’t you? If this was it for Sofia and me?’

  ‘I want what I’ve always wanted for my sister – what’s best for her.’

  ‘Regardless of what makes her happy?’

  God, he was poison. He’d been poison since the day they met. Always talking into Sofia’s ear, making her think she needs him, that she wouldn’t find someone else. Sofia wanted the complete picture – career, husband, family – and Jay preyed on that.

  ‘What you’ll figure out one day, maybe sooner rather than later now that you’re sober – for however long that lasts – is that what is best for Sofia will also make her happy. You’re scum, Jay. You’re a leech. You wanted Sanfia Records as much as you wanted Sofia and don’t you dare tell me that isn’t true. You came from nothing and you thought your dreams of being a music producer would be made by Sofia. So, you’re right, nothing would make me happier than to see her rid of you. Not because I don’t like you, which I don’t, but because she deserves a hell of a lot better than you.’

  She paused as her voice rose, glancing around to make sure they had no prying ears. It wouldn’t be good to be seen cursing the patient, would it?

  When she looked back to Jay, she was surprised to find his eyes on the brink of tears and his skin red as he stifled a sob.

  Now, she looked around wondering what the heck she was supposed to do with a crying Jay. She had said things in the heat of the moment that she had wanted to say to him for a long time. Yet, it didn’t make her feel good, at all.

  ‘I know she does,’ he said, before quickly swiping at his cheeks and sniffing back his upset, straightening his back as if his blip in composure was over and never to be seen again.

  What surprised Andrea more, was though she didn’t feel good about releasing her venom, faced with a broken man, in tears, she still felt nothing but loathing for him.

  ‘It’s why I’m here,’ he said, stronger and clearer than just seconds before.

  ‘Some things are too little, too late, Jay. Sofia will stand by you, of course she will. It’s what she does. But why should she? What did you ever do for her?’

  He gazed out to sea, as if contemplating, then told her, ‘You’re a bitch.’ It wasn’t said viciously or in distress, it was matter of fact, which was somehow worse. Like the first time your parents tell you they’re disappointed in you, rather than being angry, like the first time your sister keeps something from you as big as the fact she’s engaged because she knows you wouldn’t approve, and the worst part is, you know it’s true, you understand their reasoning.

  Was she a bitch? She had been screwing Rosalie’s dad, a married man, for six months, of course she was a bitch.

  She was here now, meddling in business that most people would consider wasn’t hers, even though she thought she was doing it for love. She loved Sofia liked she was her daughter, not her sister.

  And that was perhaps the scariest realisation of all – she could be a bitch in the name of someone she loved like a child.

  She thought of the thing that was maybe growing in her stomach.

  She couldn’t be a mother. She wasn’t fit to be a mother.

  She needed to get out of here and back to some place where she could take a test and find out what was going on with her.

  Reaching into her purse, she retrieved a white envelope and slid it across the table to Jay, drawing his attention from their surroundings.

  ‘What is this?’ he asked, holding up but not opening the envelope.

  ‘It’s an offer. A business proposal.’

  His eyes narrowed.

  ‘Open it,’ Andrea demanded.

  He read the short letter and took in the figure printed on the cheque attached to it.

  ‘You want to buy Sanfia Records?’ he asked.

  ‘Not entirely. I want, on behalf of my label, to acquire your shares in Sanfia Records and I think you’ll find that sum more than fair value.’

  He looked at the cheque, then at her, then back to the cheque. For God’s sake, he was slow.

  She waited for his brain to catch up with the opportunity that had been presented to him.

  ‘Let me get this straight. Stellar, of XM Music Group, wants to acquire Sanfia Records?’

  She tried but failed to stop her eyes rolling.

  ‘Soph will never go for this. Has she agreed to this?’

  Finally. The crux.

  ‘She doesn’t need to agree because I’m not offering to buy Sanfia Records, I’m offering to buy your shares in Sanfia Records.’

  And the proverbial light bulb…

  ‘You want to buy me out
.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, crossing one leg over the other, relaxing minutely now that the proposition was out in the open. ‘I want to buy you out and I want you out of my sister’s life.’ She stood, knowing her answer would not come today. ‘It’s a great offer. And when you take it, you’ll take it subject to one condition.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll file for divorce. You’ll let Sofia move on without you.’

  He stared at her, not displaying shock or anger, hatred even. Nothing she might have expected. He considered the cheque again.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have money for a change?’ Andrea asked. ‘Rather than taking loans and remortgaging the apartment when a potential star comes along? Wouldn’t it be nice to take the money and start up as a producer, working on the kind of stuff you want to do? I’d be paying over the odds for your shares, in the circumstances.’

  He scoffed. ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘Sanfia is mortgaged up to the hilt. I know Sofia has put everything on the line for Seth Young.’

  Jay’s eyes shot wide. As she suspected, he’d been out of the decision-making loop of Sanfia Records for some weeks.

  ‘One of the producers is an addict,’ Andrea continued, sealing the coffin. ‘If you love her. If you ever loved her. Do the right thing by Sofia.’

  ‘She would hate you more than she already does if she knew about this.’

  Andrea’s stomach sunk. Hate? But there was every chance his words were true. Regardless, she loved Sofia and this was for her.

  ‘Lucky for me, a good person like Sofia can only have so much room in her heart for hatred, and she’s used a whole load up on you and your habits.’

  She started walking away, weaving through the tables on the lawn, and she heard Jay call out… ‘Sofia is right, you never do anything if there’s not something in it for you.’

  His words made her freeze. Sofia said that?

  ‘I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that you’d get one of the biggest indie labels on your books, huh? You’d get the so-called star-in-the-making on your books.’

  She spun quickly, aware that the centre’s staff were closing in on her. ‘If I wanted to bring Seth Young over to Stellar, I would.’